In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a smaller number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Pearlicious XVI’.
In the flowering season of 2003 I hybridized a first generation cross using ‘Regal Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 11,695) white flesh clingstone nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed yellow flesh peach as the selected pollen parent. The fruit of this cross was gathered in the summer of 2003, and the seeds were removed from the fruit, germinated, stratified, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy the following winter, the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 2007 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘Regal Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 11,695) nectarine by having a having globose leaf glands, by having a large blossom, being self-fertile, and producing white flesh clingstone nectarines that are firm, that are mostly red in skin color, that have a bitter kernel, and mature in mid August, but is distinguished therefrom by having globose instead of reniform leaf glands and by producing fruit that is much larger in size and is somewhat sweeter.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Snow Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,696) nectarine by having globose leaf glands, by having a large blossom that blooms in the mid season, by requiring about 550 chilling hours, by being self-fertile, and by producing white flesh clingstone nectarines that are firm and mostly red in skin color, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is larger in size, that matures about seven days earlier, that is sweeter, and that has a bitter kernel instead of sweet.